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One Step Forward, Two Steps...Crash! If you had told me in childhood that I would take up jogging as an adult, I, loping awkwardly around my school for the dreaded PE mile with the grace of a drunken sailor, would have tripped and fallen flat on my face. Ok, so maybe I would have done that anyway. Jogging's appeal, however, shot up dramatically when I became a mother – along with anything else that provides a moment of precious solitude. Cleaning toilets, managing not a wink of sleep on a red eye, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic with the air conditioner broken. These all have acquired a certain charm, the sparkling sheen of a spontaneous trip to get ice cream while studying for finals. In fact, not sleeping on the red-eye has all the makings of a pajama party. Who knew having a child could provide silver linings to such hated activities? These moments of childlessness have been side trips out of the relentlessness of parenting, its every minute, every second-ness, where all breaks are tenuous at best, easily dissolving when a kid wakes from a nap earlier than expected. Which you knew would happen the whole time, so it was never a real break anyway. Of course, jogging is also my chosen means of exercise, satisfying my stringent requirements of an efficient activity that I'll actually do. I know I'll never do an exercise that I have to drive to, but my jogging route is right in my own neighborhood, underneath my favorite part of nature: mature trees. I've always loved walks, and recent research has borne out the theory that a solid chunk of swift walking can be every bit as healthy as its faster-paced cousin, but jogging is just a 15 or 20 minute snippet out of the day. Blink a few times, and you're back home. No doubt about it. Jogging, the bane of my elementary school existence is perfect. So, it was all well and good. I'd chosen to partner with my former nemesis, and I was getting healthy. Things (like me) were striding along. I even got a runner's high, or at least a runner's buzz, one day when I ran for a little longer than usual. And then, I took a flying leap from street to sidewalk and wrenched my hip joint. I had always had hip problems, occasionally limping around for a few days for no good reason other than having sat in a strange position for a few minutes. I had even been dubious about jogging at first because I worried about it degenerating my already susceptible joints. And this is where my inexplicable stubbornness about jogging came into play. I was sidelined for a couple of months, but refused to consider another activity. Instead, I went to the doctor, hoping for a miraculous quick fix. "These things can take up to a year to heal," he sighed. "I'll write you a referral for physical therapy. They can help to strengthen the area so that it heals faster." I glanced down at the slip of paper while limping down the hall away from the examination room. Physical therapy three times a week for four weeks! I didn't have time for that. Then, I felt a rush of athletic pride, a feeling similar to the runner's buzz I'd gotten that one time. I was so good about my health that I would make sure to go to these sessions. I would go at lunch, so that my husband, who works from home, could take care of our son. I would get back on track in a month. And I wouldn't have to come up with an inadequate alternative to jogging. Inadequate because I wouldn't end up doing it – never mind that I wasn't jogging right now either. This thought sustained me for several weeks, with "call physical therapy place" always on my daily to-do list, obviating the need for a "decide on another means of exercise" entry. The exercise issue was being worked on – or not – but it was on the list. It had a plan associated with it. And then my hip started healing on its own. This was wonderful. I didn't even have to feel guilty that I'd never called the place, not having found the time to make the first appointment, much less undertake the intensive regime recommended by the doctor. I started off on my route gingerly trying out my injured leg, and it held up for me. I started working my way up to my former distance, doing a little more each day. Then, one day about two weeks later, when I was just shy of my previous distance, I bit it. Hard. I was passing a walker and my foot grazed the ceramic border of someone's front garden. The next thing I knew I was flying through the air, like a cartoon character that just slipped on a banana peel. When I landed, the involuntary grunting yell that came out of me embarrassed me with its ferocity. The fall had literally knocked the wind out of me. With what dignity I could muster, I dragged myself up, all smiles to the pedestrian, so she would believe me when I said I was OK. After all, I had to counteract that ferocious, alarming shout. After sending her along her way again, I assessed the damage. My spandex jogging pants were ripped at the knee, and there was blood underneath. I hadn't scraped so much skin off since I flipped over my handlebars playing Russian roulette with my front and back bike brakes in 4th grade. “Is this supposed to be a sign?” I thought morosely on the way home, not limping, luckily, but going slowly to recover from my body slam. I was pretty sure I'd be whiplash-sore all over my body the next day. I can go either way on the superstitious stuff. In fact, there was a time when I almost took up jogging in college, but stopped after a horrifying and potentially premonitory dream about it. Given that, you'd think my string of accidents would dissuade me from jogging anymore. However, there was a key difference between this and the college episode. In college, I'd been happy to have an excuse not to jog, but now I really wanted to do it. My stubborn streak was showing. And, in the rock-paper-scissors of my psyche, stubbornness trumps superstition. My stubbornness took a downright ornery turn several months after this incident, making me a dead ringer for my grandfather who resisted going to the hospital when he was having a heart attack and, finally, drove himself. In my case, the situation was far less dire, but there was a similar, inexplicable disregard for my physical well-being. This time, I was not out running – OK, slugging – along, but was ensconced in the seeming safety of my kitchen at home. I was getting something out of the cupboard, and my two-year-old was too quick for me and grabbed a can. I cried, which was a bad sign because I haven't cried from pain since I was a small child. Yelled, moaned and whimpered? Yes. Cried, face wet with the downpour? No. I was pretty sure it was broken. I was even more sure when it was still tender to the touch right on the bone a few days later, after the initial swelling had gone down. And a few weeks after that. And two months later. Yes, I had refused to go to the doctor, with the lame excuse that they couldn't do anything for it but suggest rest anyway. In truth, I was terrified I'd have to use crutches. I don't have the arms for it, to put it mildly. It all goes back, again, to the elementary school gym. I would fall off of the chin-up bar before the spotter could step aside from having placed me there. I could no more have climbed a rope than filled out a training bra. So crutches, for me, would be paradoxically immobilizing. But it really came down to jogging again. I was still jogging, which sounds perverse, but didn't hurt because it didn't jostle the injured spot. I wasn't about to be sidelined again so soon after my other recoveries. So, why this level of stubbornness about jogging, placing it above some pretty basic self-care? It has something to do with having found one of those rare things that works in my life these days. It fits in, the way that having a conversation with my husband, eating a meal without stuffing my face as if it will be my last, and reading the newspaper don't. I can grab my 15 minutes of meditative, healthful activity, getting a break and feeling good about myself at the same time, and there's no toll to be paid. No owing someone personal time, no elaborately coordinated scheduling, no favors called in. It's barely a flicker in my family's morning routine. It's easy. I've learned that things that are hard-won have too much associated pressure sucking away the fun and interest that made you want to do them in the first place. When I try to write and know the hour or two is loaded – it's my only chance for the day, I’d better make the most of it, the extra time for me is putting pressure on someone else – it ceases to be enjoyable and, most devastatingly, deadens my inspiration. So when you find something that works, you realize intuitively that you need to cling to it like a tantrumming 2-year-old to Mommy's leg. And that's where I'm at now, a regular (well, semi-regular) jogger, enjoying my moment. The smile on my lips is not in spite of the pain, but companionable with it. Come to think of it, my physical mishaps often make me lope along awkwardly again, reminiscent of my childhood self. But, hey, at least my frenzied life as a parent is a heck of a lot better than elementary school gym class. Sonja Solter is a writer of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction living in Colorado Springs. She makes time for her writing while mothering her 3-year-old son, Kai.
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